John Keats once said that no tenet of philosophy is ever really accepted in us until it is proved on our pulses. Scripture is no different. I don’t care how many passion plays you’ve wept at. Until someone you truly love slips out of this world forever, the pain and promise of Christ remain abstract. That’s all right, so long as you let Christ’s reality—which is to say, simply, reality—work against that abstraction in your heart.